The bones on Wartha’s hand tugged on her fingers like the strings of a marionette. She sprinkled in a dash of pigskin shavings and a touch or orangutan hair. The green elixer shown excitedly when the ingredients graced its surface, and was even more electric when stirred by Wartha’s ladle. Her elongated, knotty fingers wrapped around the misshapen wooden handle, cackling as the potion neared completion.

A mass swayed against the fabric of her torn cloak, which made Wartha jump like one of her captured frogs.

It was Eliana, Wartha’s black ball of a cat. A cat so black it had no contours, which could’ve been on purpose as Eliana hated being picked up.

Eliana’s pitch black pupils grew wider than it’s eyes should’ve allow and her tail smacked Wartha’s leg. The precosious little thing wanted food.

Wartha looked across the cave and spotted Eliana’s bag of Meow Mix just out of reach. Her eyes darted back to the cauldren, and the elixer’s warm green glow hugged her corneas again. But out of the corner of her vision was a defenseless little creature with eyes so big you could serve them up on a plate and fur so cozy you wouldn’t need a single sip of Wartha’s renowned sleep potion.

“If you weren’t so damn cute..” Wartha uttered.

Wartha continued swirling her concoction, and while only half-looking stretched her chicken bone-like arm to nab the bag of cat food on the counter. She only managed to swat her grimoire onto the dusty sand dunes below. A puff of grey speckles splashed up and tickled Eliana’s pink nose, making her squeakishly sneeze. (You’d think for a witch she’d be more familiar with a broom.)

Wartha attempted again, this time stretching her legs and uncoiling her brudishly arched spine, which degraded her methodic stirring to a crude back-and-forth motion. However, the acrobatic stunt——at least to the doddery old hag——did not suffice.

She could stop attending the cauldren, but with such little time in her busy day, she didn’t want to risk another second without brewing.

Tapered fingernails crawled up the neck of a potion bottle and popped open its cork. Wartha could feel the tingling of the potion on her cracked lips to her head.

This time, she lifted a hand, and with whisping other-worldly forces, the Meow Mix began to levitate.

The elixir began to act up like a kid craving the regocnition of an inattentive parent. The surface formed a bubble, which popped between the ladle and the cauldren’s wall, and the toxic after-burst collided with Wartha’s skin.

With a screech and a crash, the Meow Mix fell to the floor, scattering kibble across the cave. It was done. Eliana was technically fed.